Repressed
by Miskui
Summary: Randall was silent for a few moments, frantically looking around the swamp for a quick and simple escape. There was no way he could possibly get away from Sullivan fast enough to avoid getting caught again. “I don’t understand.” Randall finally admitted.


Randall looked up at Sullivan; his eyes wide with fear and confusion. Sullivan didn't know the emotion was possible in the once hot-headed reptilian.

"M-wa!" Randall choked a little on his saliva. He coughed a little and swallowed hard. "Who – I don't… I don't – Who are you!?"

The reptile's voice was high-pitched, scratchy, and sounded worn out as if he had been high strung for far too long. Sullivan tightened his grip on Randall's shoulders slightly, which stung the scratches and bruises that were still fresh in his skin. Randall winced, his squinting eyes let the tears he was holding back fall down his face slowly. He looked away from the blue monster and tried to break away from his startled grip.

"You're alive." Sullivan finally croaked out. "You're okay. You're okay… you're okay."

Randall immediately decided not to answer to Sullivan's statement. He succeeded in prying himself away from Sullivan's hands. When he looked up at Sullivan's face, he saw the glassy coating over his eyes and the red forming around the rim of them.

"I'm…" Sullivan looked over Randall's body.

It appeared that there was a scar trailing from the tip of Randall's bottom lip down towards his second set of arms; another scar that matched that size ran in the opposite direction across his chest and slightly scrapped the sides of his back. It appeared as if one of his fronds atop of his head had been completely severed, and a scar led from the severed frond down towards his face and scrapped the top of his eye. His top left shoulder appeared completely busted as it was flatter than the right. There were bruises everywhere; they covered his entire body in an assortment of sizes. Even in the darkness of the swamp, Sullivan could still make out the dried blood that had oozed from the scars that had never been attended to.

"I'm… so sorry." He blinked his eyes and felt the fur around his eyes become damp and sticky.

Randall was silent for a few moments, frantically looking around the swamp for a quick and simple escape. There was no way he could possibly get away from Sullivan fast enough to avoid getting caught again. "I don't understand." Randall finally admitted. He recognized the monster in some way, he mistook his repressed hatred as fear, and recoiled. He felt an old anxiety creep up in his stomach and eat away at his insides; it hollowed him out. "WHO ARE YOU!?!" He yelled and let the tears run down his face freely.

Sullivan finally heard what Randall had been saying; he felt a sudden wave of numbness run over his body. He couldn't panic, not now.

"It's going to be okay Randall. It's going to be okay." Sullivan heard himself talk much too fast and he noticed Randall was backing off with a sneer forming on his face.

"G-go away."

Sullivan reached out in disbelief, his voice trembled. "Randall…"

"Who the hell are you talking about?!"

"Randall come here. I'm – I – I'm here to help."

"I don't trust you. Go away." The reptile stumbled backwards out of the shadow of the tree into the moonlight; Sullivan gasped.

He was no longer a healthy purple but an ugly, sickly blue-grey. Blood, dirt, and swamp water covered most of his newly misshaped body. Cuts, bruises, and blood lightly coated all of his hands and feet. His eyes looked slightly yellow, not a good sign for his liver. Sullivan couldn't determine the source of the blood that almost drooled from Randall's bottom lip; whether it was internal bleeding or simply from the infected scar that dragged across it was hard to tell.

"Randall…" Sullivan gasped helplessly as he noticed how the bones pierced Randall's skin from the inside showing his malnutrition. "… you don't remember me?"

"Sully! Did you find him?"

Both monsters turned to see Mike and Fungus climb over a large log and into the dampness of the swamp. A wave of remembrance passed over Randall, but it came and left so fast that it was only met with confusion. The three-eyed monster seemed to bring back comforting memories, and Randall chose to stare at him pleadingly for answers. The purple, serpent monster drew his arms and hands close to his chest as to protect it, although failing and looking extremely submissive.

"He doesn't remember me." Sullivan admitted to Mike, not wanting to look back at Randall.

"R-Randall!" Fungus wheezed through the musky swamp air he wasn't accustomed to. "Randall! Are you alright?! What happened?!"

Randall shook his head and backed off with a face of a stubborn child.

Fungus ignored Mike and Sullivan and quickly tried to climb up the slippery slope up to the marsh that Sullivan and Randall were in. Mike immediately made his way to Sullivan's side and began to ramble on about the idiocy of the situation. "You don't just forget your entire life. The stupid, lizard boy is lying his tail off!" But for some reason, when Sullivan looked back up at the malnourished Randall, it didn't seem so far off from the truth that Randall had suppressed his memories.

Suppressed his memories of the Monster world, the Scream Extractor, Sullivan, Fungus, Waternoose, and whatever else had been in his now past life. Although he definitely recalled Mike and Sullivan's appearance and a general feeling for their demeanors and their previous encounters, Randall had brought himself back to the stage of a small child. The last thirty years of his existence were in his mind's storage room.

Whatever made Randall who he was, Sullivan accepted that they probably would never know. He wondered how the shell of the miserable reptilian would react when they brought him back into the world of monsters. He wouldn't be welcome. No one would want him. And he wouldn't know why.

So in a way, would bringing him back to Montropolis be another form of punishment for the monster in itself?


End file.
